Less than 250 cases manage to make the long swim from Europe (as we imagine it) and much of this year’s allocation has been set aside for our RBC members. It isn’t easy for us to call any beer “one of our favorite De Ranke beers,” given the competitive nature of our love for things like Guldenberg and XX Bitter. Yet Père Noël still distinguishes itself even within this crowd—a rare seasonal release both inspired and masterfully executed.

The latest batch of Chernyy Medved has been brewed just for our members. We’re featuring this one as a Rare Beer Club exclusive—which are some of our favorite words in the world to say together. We’ve been digging everything we’ve been lucky enough to sample from the crew at Valiant, and as soon as we tasted Chernyy Medved, we knew we’d be needing more.

A pale double bock, huh? Well, we think it makes more sense to think of this more as a riff on the Maibock or Helles Bock style. Expect a very attractive beer in the glass, presenting a crystal clear, rich golden color capped with a large crop of white foam. Grassy, earthy hop aromas come forward immediately, underpinned by some pils malt that lends a bit of a crackery note. Some soft floral notes are apparent as well, along with a distinct...

Porterhouse’s Red Ale pours an attractive reddish-amber color with brilliant clarity and a sticky head of rocky tan foam. Look for prominent, luscious malty aromas of toasty bread, hints of brown sugar, big caramels and a wisp of butter leading to a toffee-like impression. On the palate, this traditional Irish red presents a central core of caramelized, toasty malts, with toffee and nutty notes overlaying mild hints of fruit. We found it...

Boasting a golden copper hue on the pour, with lots of rocky foam that retains well and sticks to the glass, this beer certainly looks inviting. The sentiment continues on the nose; brewed with seven hops, together making up a sort of who’s who of big, modern, New World varieties, Neon Gypsy is loud and proud. Look for luscious citric notes of orange, tangerine, grapefruit, and lemon, along with pine and softer tropical fruits. On the palate...

A chocolate peanut butter porter? Yes! Dark “peanut butter” beers are, actually, a thing. A few breweries are experimenting with this style, and for DuClaw it’s become their most popular beer, accounting for over a third of their sales and snagging a GABF Bronze Medal. The beer first came about when it won DuClaw’s first ever homebrew competition in 2011, and it was so popular that it has become a year-round beer. Brewed with an all-natural...

Altbier, meaning “old beer,” is a German ale style predating the invention of lager beers. A traditional beer from Düsseldorf, altbier is known for being balanced and smooth, with a bold, bready maltiness with moderate bitterness. Like Prost’s weissbier, their alt is very true to style. Pouring a deep brownish-amber color with creamy foam, this beer offers up obvious aromas of breadcrust, plus light caramel, earthy and grassy hop overtones...

Sadly, in our experience, most American brewers are not very adept at making authentic weissbier (a.k.a. hefeweizen). Prost is a different story. This Gold Medal winner at the 2015 GABF hits all the right notes. Expect a super hazy beer due to the unfiltered yeast, capped by a robust cap of foam. On the nose it’s as authentic as it gets: spicy clove, lemon, bubblegum, and banana, with a robust wheaty core. And, it all translates to the palate...